TTaT: Broken Wings
by Timesprite
Summary: Sometimes it takes an unpleasant surprise to get you back on your feet. A rather un-merry Christmas fic, really. This one is rater R for language, violence and assorted nastiness.


_Disclaimer: Domino and related persons are the property of Marvel Ent. and are used without permission. No profit is being made. _

This story is rather R for violence, Language, and adult situations. Thanks go out to Alison, Lyssie for content help, Kaleko for the beta, and Alicia for the little nudge I needed to actually post this. 

_You're still breathing but you don't know why  
Life's a bitch and sometimes you die  
You're still breathing but you just can't tell  
Don't hold your breath  
But the pretty things are going to hell_

**Broken Wings**  
by Timesprite

  


A truck rumbled past loudly on the street below, tires hissing as it plowed through the slushy roadway. Domino sat up slowly, rubbing at her eyes and cursing at the feeble light that leaked through the battered window blinds. Grasping a handful of blanket, she wrapped the material around her bare shoulders and reached over, groping around the nightstand for cigarettes and a lighter.  
The place was a mess.

She lit up and took a long drag, eyes roving aimlessly around the little room. She stopped for a moment, and tried to remember which city this was. US, someplace northern enough to snow. Her head rested against the cracked plaster wall and she shut her eyes. It didn't matter. Two weeks--no, almost three, since she'd calmly sat up in Pete's smoke-filled London flat, grabbed her clothes, and went to catch the first flight out of Heathrow back to the states. From there it was a haze, aside from the fact that she'd been in this place for days now. One of the less-than-elegant safe houses she had scattered across the country--but also one of the most obscure. And that was all she really wanted, after all.   
She flicked ash into the tray on the night stand and watched smoke swirl lazily towards the ceiling. She should get up. There was nothing to eat in the place--not that she was hungry--but there were also only two cigarettes left in the battered pack. She'd finished off the last of the alcohol before she'd passed out the night before. "Pathetic," she muttered to herself, throat dry and scratchy. Kicking off the blankets, she stumbled, naked and shivering, towards the bathroom.

There was a torn tee-shirt laying in a heap by the bathroom door, a remnant of the company she'd kept a few days ago. Not that she really remembered it all that well, aside from the gasp of pain when he'd squeezed her shoulder a bit too tightly, and the look on his face after he insisted on seeing what she'd done, as if he'd been some knight in shining armor instead of just a casual fuck. 

_"Christ... that's one helluva mess there. How'd ya manage that one?"_

Domino shook her head in disgust and kicked the shirt out of her way, remembering how she'd shut him up with a ruthless kiss. A pity he hadn't stuck around, she could have used the distraction. She tried not to look at her reflection in the mirror, knowing what it'd show. She was a wreck and she knew it, not that *that* particularly mattered to her, either. She reached around and began to painstakingly peel back the medical tape that held the gauze to her shoulder. Domino winced as she started tugging the gauze loose. The array of savage knife-cuts hadn't left enough intact for stitches, and it began to bleed again as she pulled the bandage free and dropped it into the garbage. Reaching over, she started up the shower. Amazingly, the hot water was actually working.  
The shower ran until her skin was an angry red, rendered numb by the scalding water. She turned the tap off and wrung out her hair, water pounding loudly on the bottom of the tub. She grabbed a towel from the broken rack on the wall and wrapped it around herself, breathing in the thick, steamy air. Condensation ran down the foggy mirror like tears, throwing back a fractured mockery of her reflection. She muttered a curse under her breath and started to roughly dry her hair.

----

The air outside was biting, and she wasn't dressed for it. Dom yanked on the collar of her coat, trying futilely to ward off the chill. Snowflakes hit her face, buffered by the wind as she hurried down the sidewalk. People were out en masse, even in this questionable part of town. She'd almost forgotten it was two days 'til Christmas. Well, she'd never been the religious sort anyway, and it was just another day when it all came down to it. There was no magic in this place of grey concrete and greyer skies. Just another day alone.  
Swiping at her wind-tousled hair and wincing as the cold bit at ungloved fingers, she plunged onward into the crowd. Cigarettes and booze, and she'd have her own damned party. Maybe some food too, she amended, since the scarecrow-thin reflection in the mirror earlier had been enough to jolt her out of her apathy. She fingered the crumpled bills in her coat pocket, knowing there was more than enough cash for what she needed--she'd cleared out a couple safety deposit boxes in her wandering.

She'd been doing very little thinking of late, trying to run on pure instinct so that logic and reason wouldn't interfere. She had the nightmares to haunt her at night, she didn't need her conscience doing it while she was awake. She felt just enough to be thoroughly disgusted with what she was doing here, but fell short of actually caring to change it. The fall had bruised her, and she had no intentions of bothering to get back up. Try as they might, broken wings could not fly. 

She shook her head and muttered under her breath. Poetry. She was spewing pointless poetry at herself now, as if she could make something artistic out of what was, frankly, an ugly situation. No one gave her so much as a second glance as she laughed darkly to herself, and pushed her way into the grocery store.

----

The fruits of her excursion totaled a couple cans of ready to serve soup, coffee--the instant kind, unfortunately, since there was no coffee maker--a box of cereal, the cigarettes, and two bottles of tequila, though she was saving that for Christmas. Odd how that was getting to her suddenly. It wasn't as if she'd ever celebrated the holiday, and she'd spent the last couple in much the same manner--alone, that was. At least in the sense that there wasn't anyone around she actually cared about. There was something to be said for finding an equally alone companion and throwing a nice little pity party, a celebration of alone-ness. Cheers to those who didn't give a fuck, and about whom no one gave a second thought.  
Now that was a bit harsh, maybe. She shrugged off her jacket and fell back on the unmade bed, lighting up and watching the smoke spin and twirl. She had places to go, after all. G.W. would have welcomed her with open arms if she got it into her head to show up on his doorstep. X-Force wouldn't complain if she tracked them down--but with both those choices lay this vague, looming shadow that was Nathan. It was that stain that had forced her to abandon her life three years before. Problem was, how was she to cut out someone who'd been there for nearly two-thirds of her life? She couldn't, but damned if she hadn't tried.

The first Christmas had been, quite literally, hell. Maybe because she'd spent the previous one cozied up to Nate in a little cabin buried in the back woods of who the fuck knew where, drinking too much and generally screwing like there was no tomorrow. They'd both had that need to get away, since the holiday was meaningless to them both. Away from the lights and the good cheer, away from families (in his case) and emotions (in hers) that they couldn't quite cope with. So she'd opted to sleep through that first Christmas alone, falling into old, bad habits to do so. She'd stopped downing sleeping pills like candy at nineteen, after all.  
Last year had been better. Instead of curling up with a pill bottle, she'd gone for a well-muscled Brazilian who thought her name was Liz, all of twenty if he was a day. Rio always had been her favorite 'crash' spot. When the going got tough, the tough hit the beach, and she'd spent months pretending she was twenty-five again, trying to catch onto a life before things had gotten so complicated. Sex and sun only went so far, though, and she'd soon been swallowed by another hunger entirely. It was the hunger of an adrenaline-junkie, the need for action to sustain her and give her peace of mind. In all her life, tempting fate was the one constant.  
Someone could mistakenly believe that she trusted her luck to save her, but it was really quite the opposite. She put no stock in luck, and every move was an attempt to stretch it and see just how far it would go. She kept pushing, waiting to see just what it would take to snap. One could claim, quite compellingly, that she'd finally reached her goal. Her eyes roamed the cracked ceiling as she exhaled slowly, looking around at the substantiation of her morbid victory celebration.

She finished the cigarette and got up again, walking over and turning on the stove to heat up water for coffee. It was a bit early to hit the bars--even for her. She really didn't feel like warding off the advances of the hard-core alcoholics that frequented them while the rest of the world was out working. Maybe later, when the scumbag quotient was a little lower... She was getting the tiniest bit tired of being alone in the apartment, after all. She dug around in the cupboard for a coffee mug and dumped a few spoonfuls of the freeze dried psuedo-coffee into the cup. The kettle started whistling and she slopped hot water into the cup, stirring it and walking back over to the bed. There wasn't much in the way of furniture in the place.  
The snow was beginning to get thicker, and distantly, she could hear the irritating ring of Salvation Army bells. It almost made her laugh, the irony of asking for donations in a part of the city that needed those donations the most. She took a slug of the coffee and made a face. It wasn't good by any stretch of the imagination, but it was caffeinated. Anything to kill the dull ache that lingered behind her eyes. She ran a hand back through her hair and sighed. One of these days, she was going to find a way to avoid moments like these, the low spots that punctuated her life at intervals. It was an ugly habit of hers, a masochistic sort of punishment she inflicted every time she took a step too far, and accidentally fell into the void. She took another swallow of the coffee and chuckled mirthlessly. Okay, so this hadn't exactly been an accident. More like a car wreck, really. She'd seen the bend in the road coming, she just hadn't taken any heed--or... "Fuck," she muttered aloud. It wasn't even anything as innocent as a car crash. It was a deliberate sort of suicide; her heart kept going but her spirit had died, quite deliberately, in fact. It was so clear in retrospect, the acceptance of the job Wisdom had offered her, even after she'd known the details, her refusal to quite until the job was done properly, each move was as painstaking deliberate as the individual stokes of the knife on her skin afterwards. She drank down the rest of the coffee and let the empty cup fall to the already stained carpeting. All she'd wanted was that final little push to send her over the edge so she could give up on the facade she'd been clinging to for ages. She'd grown so tired of pretending she was okay. Well, she'd gotten what she wanted, in spades. She'd gone a bit overboard, really. The fact that she was having nightmares that ripped her, screaming, back to consciousness when she didn't drug herself to sleep was ample proof of that. Everything was blurring into one horrific downward slide, and the really sick thing was, she didn't even care.

She closed her eyes, but there was no peace. Somewhere in the building, voices were shouting. A police car shot by on the street outside, sirens wailing plaintively as tires hissed over slick pavement. A thousand images seemed to lie in wait behind her closed lids, pushing and shoving against one another in a frightful, horror-movie montage.   
There was a trick to keeping sane in her occupation. People either learned it very quickly, or the gory business got to them the first time they stumbled upon a room full of week-old corpses. There was a cost, however, for the thicker skin. There was always a price to pay. Some met it with honesty; they did the work and raged, or wept, or cursed in disgust afterwards, then got up the next morning and did it all over again. Some didn't fight the madness at all, and were all the more dangerous for it. 

And then there were people like her, for whom there'd never really been a choice. The life had chosen them, and they met it with defiance, matching it move for move with stubbornness and determination, pretending the vicious slashes on their souls and psyches were just so many paper-cuts. They internalized the suffering and the anger, adding it to the damage they already carried around inside them even as they pretended the blood never touched them. It took effort. It took insane amounts of will and concentration, and often the protective 'blind eye' became a liability instead; it failed to catch the creeping darkness that came from within.

She was too tired to play the game now, worn out from four months of fending off the terrors of a thirteen year old girl she'd spent almost twenty years trying to bury and leave behind. She had nothing left to give, and the cost had suddenly come due.

Domino fell back onto the tangled bed sheets and lay very still, the sound of her breathing loud in her ears. From someplace far off, a faint strain of Christmas music reached her, incongruous with her surroundings. With her eyes shut against the world she felt strangely disassociated from everything, drifting tiredly. A woman was singing, her warm alto voice seeming both familiar and soothing. She let herself fall into the sound, losing sense of the room around her, fading from feeling altogether as she tried to place the singer.

Her eyes snapped open again, heart suddenly racing as the moment shattered like glass, the shards cutting white-hot agony behind her eyes. She lurched to her feet, unsteady, and swallowed hard past the bile taste in the back of her throat. The world was wrenched back into focus around her, city noises, voices elsewhere in the building, everything as it should be. She was trembling slightly, remnants of senseless terror clinging tenaciously as she stumbled to the sink, filling a glass from the tap and shaking out a few tablets from the bottle on the counter. She didn't need this shit, she thought bitterly. Dreaming. She'd just drifted off for a minute or two... she wasn't hallucinating. 

"Fuck," she muttered to herself, tossing back the pills and gulping down the water, setting the empty glass back on the counter. She rubbed a hand over her eyes, wincing. "Goddamnit..." She leaned against the counter for a moment, then went back to the bed, yanking off her boots before wrapping the blankets around herself tightly and lying back on the mattress. One hand slid beneath the pillow as she closed her eyes, fingers sliding lightly over the sleek, familiar surface of the weapon that lay nested there. With a sigh, she willed herself to sleep.

----

The music grated on her nerves, but she was ignoring it in favor of her fourth shot of tequila. She'd also had two kamikazes, and been offered a pint of Guinness. She wasn't ready for something as thick as Guinness yet. Guinness took time to drink.   
Standing alone in a bar two days before Christmas wasn't really very high on her list of 'things to do,' or wouldn't have been normally, anyway. But she's needed to get the hell out of the safe house, and anywhere else was bound to be garishly lit by too many decorations while piped in, tinny songs repeated themselves on an endless loop. So this was the alternative. She downed the shot and turned to smile at the young man standing next to her. "Buy me a drink?" He grinned, bowed and motioned to the bartender.

Twenty minutes passed. He bought her more tequila. She concentrated on blotting out everything but the feel of the alcohol burning its way down her throat. Around them, though, people danced and laughed, chattered at each other and giggled. A drunken bachelorette party caused a stir as the bride-to-be lost her dinner in their back corner, sending the delicate ladies screaming out into the main room.

"Hey."

"Hrm?"

"Eric. You wanna go somewhere and get away from the chaos?"

"Is there more booze?"

"Sure."

"Let's go."

----

"Well, it's not much." She unlocked the door and let Eric inside. "Sorry about the mess." She tossed the keys on the counter. 

"Hey, I've seen a lot worse, trust me." He shot her a million-dollar grin and shrugged off his coat. She laughed and grabbed two glasses from the cabinet, then snagged one of the bottles from the fridge. 

"There's only the one chair," she commented. 

"Bed's good enough for me," he replied, stretching out. "Unless it's a problem?"

She arched an eyebrow at him, and smirked. "Nope. Make yourself right at home." She carried over the glasses and the bottle of tequila and sloshed some into both glasses, handing him one.

"So what are we toasting to?"

"You're one hell of a comedian, aren't you, kid? Uh... hell. The god of seedy bars and 80 proof."

He laughed. "Hell, that's good enough for me."

Dom grinned and downed her drink. Maybe the day wouldn't be a total loss after all.

----

"This is a bad part of town, y'know. You stay here by yourself?"

"I can handle it," she replied. "Besides," she propped herself up on an elbow, grinning. "Life's more fun this way." She threw a bravado behind her words she didn't really feel. His concern for her safety was amusing. She offered the bottle.

He shook his head, leaning back on his arms. "I think I've hit my limit."

"Hmph." She took another swallow. "Suit yourself." Dom stared out the window momentarily, lost in the sight of snowflakes tumbling down and shimmering in the light from the streetlamps. Ugly, godawful sodium-vapor lamps though they were, they managed to reflect the tiny crystalline flakes in an almost pretty way, which could not often be used to describe this part of town.

"Snowing again," she commented quietly, fingers tightening around the neck of the tequila bottle. Eric looked up from tracing his fingers lightly across her back, and smiled.

"So it is. Looks like a White Christmas again this year."

She rolled her eyes at him good-naturedly. "Everybody says that. Why does everybody say that? It's freakin' Chicago, for crying out loud. It's a White Christmas every year. Well," she amended, "more like a gray and brown Christmas. Stuff hits the ground and it's automatically dirty as hell." She wrinkled her nose in distaste. Domino knew she was rambling, thanks in part to the tequila, but couldn't bring herself to even particularly care. Her head rolled bonelessly on the pillow to look out the window again, at the snow falling thicker and thicker, the orange streetlamp giving it a sickly cast now.

Hands suddenly framed her face, tilting it back to meet his gaze again. Warm brown eyes smiled down at her as he tugged at the Cuervo still clenched in her hand. She reluctantly allowed him to pry the bottle away.

"Ever been to Colorado?" he asked softly, massaging her cold fingers between his palms. Dom barely suppressed a snort. 'Oh, kid, if you only knew,' she thought, but decided to play along. Wasn't like she was planning on basing a relationship out of a one-night stand, anyway. Who cared if she lied?

At her headshake, he smiled. "It's amazing to see. Some areas, the snow just looks like a giant white blanket covering the land. There's nothing quite like it, especially at night."

She made a small noise, trying to remain indifferent, to forget about the last snowy night she'd borne witness to in that state. "Sounds nice."

"Mmm. It is. I'll just have to take you there someday." Eric gave her a lopsided grin. 'God, he's really laying it on thick,' she thought to herself. Deciding she couldn't listen to him any more and keep a straight face, Dom reached up and pulled him down, kissing him hard and teasing the nape of his neck with her nails.

If he was startled by her sudden forwardness, he hid it well, she noted wryly. Gradually, the kiss deepened, hands exploring the planes of each others' bodies hungrily. Clothing was quickly shed as their pace grew steadily more and more urgent. Tension between them built at a fever pitch as Eric trailed his mouth down her body, lingering here and there only long enough to tease, torturing her to the brink and back, again and again.  
Finally she couldn't stand it anymore, dragging him roughly back up and wrapping her legs around his waist. Eric took the hint, plunging into her and driving a startled cry from the back of her throat. They settled into a hard, fast rhythm, forcefully crashing together, rising and falling as one until Eric shuddered his release. They stayed together for a moment more, then Dom felt the weight above her shift as he withdrew and settled himself beside her. She hoped to hell he wasn't a cuddler.

Thankfully, he made no move to touch her beyond the contact they already had. They lay in silence for several minutes, flushed skin and pounding hearts beginning to cool and slow. Dom rested her cheek against the cool cotton of the pillowcase, turning her head again to gaze out the window at the still-falling snow. It was falling in a steady curtain now, and she turned away from him, curled onto her side, and watched it, allowing it to lull her to sleep.

----

Cold, and the sound of someone rummaging around loudly nearby dragged her, grudgingly, from sleep. Her head was pounding something horrible, and she hesitated to move. If she lay still enough, maybe she could just fall asleep again. But the noise continued, grating loudly in her ears. Her eyes fluttered open and she turned, freezing suddenly as cold steel pressed against her neck. "Fuck."

"Don't move, and you'll be fine," Eric's voice intoned.

It figured. "Look, kid, you really don't--"

"Shut up!" The blade pressed harder, breaking the skin. Closing her eyes, Domino felt blood trickle down her neck. If she was lucky, he'd just rob her and go. The fact that he was still here, however, seemed to indicate he intended to stick around and have a little fun, first. Slowly, without shifting the rest of her body, she slid her hand under the pillow. Hopefully, he hadn't found--a barrel pressed into her ribs. He had. "Fuck," she cursed again. Well, it certainly wasn't the first time her luck had abandoned her. "Look... just take the money and go, alright? I'm not gonna turn you in." She was starting to get a crick in her neck from being pressed into the bed like she was.

"Where's the fun in that?" His voice was haughty, self-assured as he forced her onto her back, using his weight to pin her arms under her. He waved the gun casually in her face, the knife still biting into her neck. She mentally kicked herself. What the hell had she been doing, falling asleep with him still in the apartment? Rookie mistake, and she knew it. "Besides," he continued with a leer, "I think I deserve a Christmas present, don't you?" 

It was always the unassuming ones, she thought dryly. "Greedy little prick, aren't you?" She cursed through gritted teeth, fighting to keep control against a barrage of emotions that tore through her. Her heart raced, feeling as if it were trying to escape through her ribcage, despite her determination to stay calm. 

"I take what I can get," he replied casually, giving her that boyish grin again, though his eyes glittered with malice. She twisted, trying to throw him off, but he had to have almost eighty pounds on her, and she couldn't get any leverage. He backhanded her with the butt of the gun, and pain exploded behind her eyes for a brief moment before reaching up to drag her into unconsciousness. The last thing she saw before it claimed her completely was Eric, features twisted in a mockery of a smile.

----

Pain was the first thing that registered as she came back to consciousness. Pain in her head and in her arms as she shifted automatically, trying to shake off some of the discomfort. She groaned slightly, and jolted fully awake as she realized her wrists had been firmly bound behind her back. Shoelaces, maybe, from the way they cut into her skin, and no amount of twisting was going to loosen them. She relaxed back on the mattress, head pounding. She was fast losing feeling in her fingers.

"Welcome back."

Domino jerked her head up at the voice--a mistake as her vision began to blur almost instantly. She fought against it, and managed to force her eyes back into focus. Eric was sitting backwards on a chair a few feet away, arms resting along the back. He was wearing nothing but his faded blue jeans, and the gun dangled loosely in his right hand.

"Hmm." His eyes raked over her prone body, a wicked grin on his face. "I've been waiting for this, you know..." He stood and walked casually to the side of the bed. "Better than I imagined." 

With a snarl, she lashed out with a well aimed kick, but instead of connecting, Eric sidestepped and caught hold of her ankle. "Oh, feisty," he laughed, and gave her leg a cruel yank. "I like it." He let her leg drop and leaned forward, one hand pressing on her sternum, keeping her pinned to the mattress. "But let's not do that again, okay?" She flinched involuntarily as the cool metal of the gun traced along the inside of her thigh.

She closed her eyes, swallowing hard. There was still a way out of this. She just had to find it. She wasn't going to let him do this. Working her hands behind her back again, she gritted her teeth as whatever he'd used cut into her skin painfully. There just wasn't any give, however. He'd bound her tightly enough that circulation was being cut off, making her fingers feel stiff and clumsy. Her shoulder was beginning to throb painfully from the strain being put on it. She tried to shake him off once more, almost to the point of not caring whether or not he shot her. It would be better than this--

A strangled sob of pain escaped her as his hand clamped down viciously on her right shoulder, fingers digging into the gauze that covered the half-healed wound. "I told you not to do that," he hissed, his condescending demeanor slipping for an instant. He was kneeling over her now, anger blazing on his face. The barrel of the gun bit into her ribs to make his point. She whimpered slightly and bit down on her lip, trying to fight off the tears that sprang to her eyes. "That's better." He released her shoulder, fingers tracing along her jaw in a gesture of mock-affection. He took her chin in his hand and stared intently into her face for a moment. "I really do like the tattoo, by the way."

She took a ragged breath and shut her eyes, trying to find someplace she could think rationally, a corner of her mind that could block out the rough kisses he trailed along her neck, the harsh way he was touching her all over. There was nowhere to go, however, she was trapped in her body, forced to feel everything he was doing to her vividly. She twisted her hands behind her frantically in a mixture of panic and rage, not caring about the blood she could feel on her fingers as she worked. There had to be--this wasn't going to happen. Not again... He shifted on top of her, and she could tell he was slipping off the jeans. She pressed her head back against the pillow, biting down on her lip so hard she tasted blood, knowing there was no way to steel herself for it.

She jerked spasmodically, back arching up off the mattress as he thrust into her violently. Fingernails dug into her palms as she choked on her scream, the pain ripping through her unbearably. She struggled against unconsciousness, as tempting as it was. Surrendering to that would mean sacrificing her last shred of control, losing the frail hope that she'd still find a way out of this, somehow.   
Lights exploded behind eyelids squeezed tightly shut so that she wouldn't have to see his face above her, twisted with the sick delight he got out of hurting her. She couldn't catch her breath, managing only intermittent gasps past the lump that seemed permanently lodged in her throat. Blinding agony began to fade into numbness and it was getting harder and harder to cling to consciousness. Finally, she dimly felt his weight shift off of her, and she lay, trembling uncontrollably, lacking the strength and the will to even lift her head to see where he'd gone. He could have decided to kill her--she wasn't entertaining any thoughts that he intended to let her out of this alive, after all, but she couldn't bring herself to feel more than a tight dread in the pit of her stomach. There wasn't much she could do about it, anyway. Moments passed, however, and nothing happened. She got the sick feeling he was standing out of her sight, just watching. Her head dropped limply to the side, gazing out the window again where snow was still falling, white against a field of black. 

----

Where unconsciousness had been a blessing, waking was a curse. She was cold, bitterly so, which only added to steady, throbbing ache that coursed through her entire body. The air was sharp with the coppery smell of blood--she could taste it in her mouth and feel the pull of it dried on her skin. Pins and needles shot through her hands and arms as she stretched fingers experimentally. The laces tying them felt looser, however--whether it'd happened sometime during the assault or if he'd done it afterward, she didn't know. With a deep breath, she tried to steady her racing heart, and opened her eyes.

He was watching her. Eric's face loomed over hers, expression placid except for the sickening intensity in his eyes as he gazed at her. She swallowed hard and looked away. How long had he been sitting there, waiting for her to open her eyes again? Hours had passed--early morning light was leaking in the windows. She jerked violently as his hand slid over her skin, and she heard him chuckle. "Well, hello there," he said quietly, stretching out next to her. One hand continued to trail over her bruised body, while the other, she saw, held the knife. She twisted her hands behind her again and felt the bindings give, ever so slightly. It was far from freedom, but it was something. She concentrated on that alone, even as the caresses grew steadily more forceful, bringing tears to her eyes as he visited more violence on her already battered body.   
There was the glint of light off metal at the edge of her peripheral vision, and she strained her eyes, finally catching a glimpse of the knife lying mere feet away on the mattress. She tasted blood as she bit her lip to keep from crying out as he positioned himself to enter her again, yanking desperately at the restraints, fingers slick with blood and cold sweat until finally, they gave way. Her heart stopped for a split second, then pure instinct took over. She shoved herself over with all of her strength, right hand flicking out to grab the knife even as she flipped a shock-paralyzed Eric onto his back, her left elbow jammed into his larynx. 

"You just couldn't listen, could you?" She hissed, leaning over him. Adrenaline was canceling out pain for the time being, though blood still ran from the welts on her wrists, dripping down her forearms. Eric's eyes were wide as saucers. She gave him a malicious grin. "You could have just taken the cash and gone, I wouldn't have stopped you. But no, you *had* to take liberties," she continued, letting her rage seep into her voice. It was the only thing keeping her going at this point, and she knew it. "I've met a lot of sick bastards in my day--guys you couldn't hold a *candle* to." She held the knife in front of his face, chuckling darkly to herself as he tried to breath, making desperate, strangled noises. "They couldn't have me," she continued in a harsh whisper. "And neither can you." The blade struck deftly between his ribs and he jerked once, then went limp. "Picked the wrong person to fuck with," Dom sighed, giving the half-lidded, lifeless eyes one last look before climbing off the body.

Her knees buckled almost the instant her feet hit the floor and she whimpered quietly, unable to remain standing though she managed to keep control of the fall. The impact sent a jolt of pain through her that knocked the air from her lungs, and she leaned forward on one arm, catching her breath and trying not to move until the agony ebbed again. "Fuck," she hissed, and squeezed her eyes shut, swallowing hard. There wasn't time for this, damnit; she needed to get out and as far from there as she could as soon as possible. Shakily, she got to her feet again and managed to stay there, though her muscles felt rubbery, unable to support her. "Okay." She took a deep breath and glanced around. Fortunately, there was very little to pack. The body could stay as it was; given the nature of the apartment complex and the people it housed, it would likely be days, if not weeks before it was discovered. It helped that the name on the lease belonged to someone who didn't actually exist.   
Gingerly, she made her way to the bathroom and wetted down a washcloth, wiping at the blood on her hands and fore arms. The friction burns themselves had stopped bleeding, though the welts themselves were livid and painful. She quickly covered them with a layer of gauze and tape, retrieved from the medicine cabinet, then proceeded to change the bandage on her shoulder, stiff arm muscles screaming in protest after hours of immobilization. 

There was nothing to be done for the ugly contusion on her head, except pray that it was only a minor concussion. Then again, it would have served the bastard right if she'd fallen unconscious and never come to again. The thought made her laugh humorlessly, and she winced at the pain the movement caused. Ignoring it as best she could, she finished cleaning blood from her neck and thighs, shoving the urge to curl up in a ball and cry as far away as she could. There wasn't time for emotion now, and she knew it. There would be time to deal with the rest of the implications later, though a part of her knew that she'd more than likely simply add it to the mountainous pile of unpleasant experiences she'd been a victim to over the years.

She distracted herself from physical discomfort by going through all her options as she quickly gathered up the few possessions scattered around the apartment, trying to formulate a plan and wondering how she'd let herself get so careless. Nothing like a good proverbial kick to the teeth to make you pick yourself up off the floor, she thought wryly. Probably what she deserved for wallowing in her own self-pity. She finished packing and zipped the bag shut, giving the room a final glance to make sure she'd missed nothing.  
The body on the bed was a non-entity now, just an empty shell, detached from the living, breathing, violent man he'd been, severed neatly by a mind all too well-accustomed to this game. With luck, the scene would prove confusing enough to keep police scratching their heads for a good long while. Dom turned her back on the gruesome spectacle determinedly. The need to be very far away from everything that had happened here was suddenly overpowering. Didn't really matter *where*; there was no one she could call on and trust not to pry. Though, she supposed, she could give G.W. a call in a week or so, just to let him know she was still alive. 'Only common courtesy, after all,' she reminded herself. And beyond that, she had a sudden, strong urge to hear a friendly voice. Having finally made the decision, she pulled on her coat and pocketed the keys after locking the door behind her, heading down towards the parking.

The snow had stopped, leaving trees and buildings coated in several inches of white. The day was still getting under way as she pulled out, leaving the landscape near-pristine, the sparkling layer of snow and ice burying, for a time, the trash and grime that lay beneath it, and Domino chuckled mirthlessly at the twisted appropriateness of it all. Static-cracked Christmas carols drifted from the radio as she turned on to the interstate, and headed out of town. 

*end*


End file.
